After everyone got some much needed rest, we ate our $55 Euro breakfast buffet at the hotel and headed out to purchase tickets for a bus tour that would take us by most places of interest, a few of which we would hop off at to take a closer look. Here is a link to the tour site. We started out on the City Tour (the red line) and it was okay, but the narrative was done by tape and you had to use headphones.

If you buy one ticket you are able to hop on and off both the red and yellow lines (yellow buses have "Dublin Tour" on the outside). I highly recommend you go on the yellow bus because they have actual live Irish tour guides and you will get a much better flavor of the city and personal little stories that can be very funny. The red bus will take you to a couple of extra parks in the city...but to me, a park is a park. I want to hear the actual live guide tell me stories and see more of the architectural and cultural stuff in the city. But that's just me.

So to summarize....red bus is okay....yellow bus is much better....go on the yellow bus.

You can see from the route shown on the site you go about 20 places. The first place we hopped off was Dublin Castle. I always wanted to see an old castle in Ireland. We walked the grounds, visited the gift shop where I got some things with our family coat of arms on them (way cool), and then later took the tour after lunch at The Castle Inn (this was the best meal we had while in Dublin, and I'll tell you about it in the food post).

By the way...did you know that Dublin was named after the black pool of water near the castle that would seep in everywhere? It was originally two names....Dub Lin (not sure of the spelling there) and eventually the names were combined to Dublin. The water is mostly all gone, but when we took the tour of the castle and went down into some of the original stone facings dating back to 1204 you could see brackish black water way at the bottom of the stair well that some claim is the remnant of the black pool. But who knows? Neat story anyway.

The Irish tour guide was most excellent, and he weaved stories about the Irish revolution in with details about the palace. Here's a link with more information in case you're interested. And following are some pictures we took during the tour.

Some images of the street facing side of the castle:

Here is the area where the black pool once resided. It's now a green field with walking paths.

Must be too tempting for the young lads when they visit so they posted this sign:

Here is one of the main palace hallways. At some point the palace was rebuilt after a fire so this isn't the original architecture from 1204 but it's still quite old. The lighting fixtures are Venetian.

Here is the ladies salon. The fixtures here are pure Waterford. Very pretty. Also notice the mirrors along both walls. Back in Victorian times the ladies had to sit "just so" and keep their skirts straight so they needed the mirrors to aid them in this endeavor.

Here is the original stone facing from the outside of the castle. Back in the 1200's they didn't have mortar so they used horse hair, ox blood and egg shells to hold the bricks together. And they were quite good at creating a smooth surface so the walls could not be scaled by enemies.

When George II visited and held court, they had to build a special, extra large throne for him. This chair is HUGE. But anyway, it was kind of neat to see it since it does date back to George II.

I hope the above gives you a flavor of the castle grounds and the rebuilt palace. The tour was about 50 minutes and quite interesting. I highly recommend taking the tour.

We also visited Christ Church Cathedral. It dates back to 1038. See?

Here is the outside. Remember, these walls date back to 1038. Pretty damn impressive.

And here are some images of inside the cathedral. There are all sorts of nooks and crannies with remembrances, and the main prayer hall is quite spectacular. Enjoy.

Underneath the church they have some catacombs built with the original structure that house some rooms they might have used during the crusades for some, shall we say, "face to face" conversations. Below is one of the devices left from that era:

All right, then. That's all the pictures I have from the bus tour. We rode by some other places but of course we were too busy listening to the tour guide and enjoying his stories to grab some images when we stopped for lights. Sorry. I can say that when we passed by the Guinness factory they were actively brewing and the aroma was everywhere.

If you go, do the bus tour. You won't be sorry.

After the tour we went and had some beers at the hotel, and then grabbed a cab over to the Hard Rock Cafe Dublin for our last dinner in Ireland. Not Irish at all, but still kinda need to have eaten there. I always try to visit a Hard Rock if there is one wherever I travel. And Tommy's parents had never been to one so that was nice for them to experience.

So that was day two of our stay in Dublin. The next morning we were off to America. It was hard finally catching a flight home, and we got coach seats from Dublin to our first stop in the U.S. But we didn't care. We had been to Ireland and it was all worth it. If you get a chance to go to Ireland, go.

I'll put together some information on the other restaurants we went to and put that up probably tomorrow.

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Comments

We Americans just don't get that sense of history like you find in Europe. When I went to Amsterdam, I was just amazed that I could touch a building that was older than the US by a LONG shot. If those walls could talk...

Posted by: DrinkJack on October 21, 2005 09:06 PM

Ooh, I heart the stained glass! Great pics.

Posted by: Paula on October 19, 2005 04:11 PM

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